A Writer Prepares
Pages: 286
|Published: 1 Jan 2021
Description
"Sometimes a reviewer just can’t wait to write about a book. Even though Lawrence Block’s memoir, “A Writer Prepares,” isn’t available till June, I was recently sent an advance proof. Quite innocently, I started reading it — and couldn’t tear myself away…."—Michael Dirda, Washington PostFrom the Sometime in 1953, I knew with unusual certainty what I intended to do with my life. I would become a writer.By the time I was 25, I had a wife and two daughters and a house in a suburb. I had published over fifty books. Most of these bore pen names, and for a time I resisted acknowledging my early pseudonymous work. Then, in one astonishing and feverish week in 1994, I recalled those early years in fifty thousand words of memoir.A publisher contracted to bring out my memoir once I'd completed it. Instead I put it on a shelf and never looked at it again. Early in 2020, I had a fresh look at A WRITER PREPARES. And I went back to work on it. By the time I was ready to stop, I'd written about my life as a writer well into 1966, when I'd completed The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep.A WRITER PREPARES, an examination of the first quarter century of one writer's life, is arguably the work of two writers. There's the middle-aged fellow who wrote about half of it at a blistering pace in 1994, and there's the octogenarian who finished the job another quarter century later. The older fellow brought less raw energy to the task, and his memory is a long way from infallible, but one can only hope he's offset these losses with a slight edge in judgment, in perspective, in maturity. (I was about to add wisdom, but that might be a bridge too far.)"A WRITER PREPARES is incredibly smooth reading, written in Block’s conversational style. It’s also funny. I kept stopping to read parts of it out loud to my family, because they wanted to know why I was giggling my way through a memoir. Block puts a light spin on everything, reminding us that writing truly is the best job in the world....Reading a writer’s memoir is always inspirational, but A WRITER PREPARES is both inspiring and instructive. It’s a delightful look back in time filled with lessons for the present day." —Alex Kourvo, Writing Slices
